A federal judge in New York ripped into the Trump administration’s “arbitrary” practice of arresting immigrants as they leave their immigration court hearings, creating what he calls a “game of detention roulette” that violates due process.
District Judge Dale Ho, who was appointed by Joe Biden, said the government violated the constitutional rights of a 27-year-old asylum seeker from Paraguay who was arrested moments after attending a court hearing in Manhattan last month.
And he “appears to be far from alone,” Ho wrote.
“His counsel assert that his treatment is part of a ‘nationwide campaign,’ as set forth in an ICE internal memo that has been described in various media reports, which suggests that millions could be swept up in the same way,” the judge added.
ICE “cannot confirm or deny the existence of such a new policy,” yet the government’s position states that federal law enforcement “must categorically detain all undocumented immigrants who they believe have entered the United States unlawfully — no matter how long they have been residing in the country since,” according to Ho.
“But treating attendance in immigration court as a game of detention roulette is not consistent with the constitutional guarantee of due process,” he continued.
Thousands of people across the country have faced arrest after showing up for their court-ordered ICE check-ins or routine immigration court hearings as part of Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
Unlike federal district court judges, immigration court judges operate under the direction of the attorney general’s office.
The Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review has issued guidance to judges to grant motions from government lawyers to immediately dismiss immigrants’ cases, making them easy targets for arrest and removal.
That strategy has generated scenes of masked federal agents patrolling courthouse hallways and hauling away immigrants the moment they leave their court hearings.
Half of all immigration court arrests nationwide were in New York City in late May and early June, according to an analysis published by news outlet The City.
Between May 26 and June 8, federal officers arrested 134 people in lower Manhattan immigration courthouse buildings, accounting for nearly a third of all immigration arrests in New York City in that period, the outlet found.
Those arrests spiked alongside arrests at mandatory ICE check-ins with the agency, including appointments across the street from downtown Manhattan’s 26 Federal Plaza, which also houses a makeshift detention facility at the center of a lawsuit alleging unsanitary conditions and a lack of access to medicine and legal counsel.
The administration’s actions to strip legal status from immigrants who are in the middle of their immigration cases and following the law have radically expanded a pool of “undocumented” people to add to the president’s demands for mass deportations.
Policy that has since been abandoned by the Trump administration sought to prevent courthouse arrests from creating a “palpable fear that disincentivizes people from appearing for their hearings,” according to a lawsuit filed by civil rights groups against the practice.
“But in the first few days of the Trump administration, defendants repealed those policies, exposing individuals who properly appear for their hearings, including to seek asylum and other relief, to the imminent threat of arrest and indefinite detention,” the lawsuit states.
The 12 plaintiffs — most of whom are LGBT+ or victims of female genital mutilation who fear persecution and violence in their home countries — sought protection in the United States only to have their cases abruptly dismissed, with masked federal officers waiting to arrest them on the other side of the courtroom doors.
Many of the plaintiffs had lived in the United States without issue for years before their arrest when they were abruptly separated from their families, including U.S. citizens, without notice, according to the lawsuit.
